I’ve been reading my mom’s old blog recently…
It’s fun to look at photos of little me, but my favorite part is the glimpses of her in the writing. She used to document me like a zoologist! Lots of little observations, transcribed dialogue, and musings about my developing social emotional skills and sense of ethics. The dialogues are my favorite: conversations from 2011 feel like they could have happened between us today, and it's comforting to be reminded that my relationship with my mom goes back, essentially unchanged, to before I can remember. I'd like to think I'm a bit more polite these days, though... I have a lot to say about reading the old posts, but I don't think that debrief needs to go here.
Anyway, so why a blog? I like sharing parts of my life online, and I like seeing what other people are doing. Blogging seems like a good way to share my thoughts in more detail than would make sense on instagram. I want to put my thoughts out into the world both because my friends might be interested in what I'm up to, and because the process of drafting a post might help me process things more deeply. I don't plan to post on here super often, but I want a place to recount experiences to share them and preserve them for posterity when I feel like it. I've been getting into documenting my life and the time I spend with people I care about over the past couple years; this is another experiment on that front.
On a less personal note, I think the cultural moment is ripe for blogs to come back. Algorithmic curation has completely taken over the way we engage with things online, and it feels like people are getting sick of it. Everyone I know my age uses instagram and resents how they use it. As online content becomes less and less genuine, I think (and hope) that the desire to escape algorithms will grow. I had a little rant written about how the profit-driven nature of the internet combined with algorithmic curation warps the nature of the content that we are all seeing online, but I think 'nuff said. Basically, the only people I want to see on social media are people I know for real.
Blogs seem like a good way to choose whose thoughts you are receiving online: either you visit a URL or you sign up for an email list - there's no algorithm in the way. More musicians have been making mailing lists and I think that's awesome. Maybe someday I won't need instagram to find out about shows, or to keep up with people I don't regularly talk to.
I don't intend to start a movement here, but I do hope for my own sake that my friends start blogging, even if you don't post much, or make elaborate posts, or post anything besides some photos now and then. I want to hear from you. Text me if you see a cool bug!
- Henry ❤️